Monday, 23 March 2015

As you may or may not know, Celestine has been on holiday for quite a while. A bit too long in my opinion. I received a postcard from her a while back but then nothing. She was obviusly having too good a time.

Well, Celestine has a friend called Penguin who belongs to my friend Sian. Penguin suddenly went missing for a while too and Sian and I wondered if maybe Celestine and Penguin had gone off together on holiday.

Then, tiny postcards began to appear at Sians house from Penguin. It turned out that indeed he and Celestine were on holiday together.

And what a holiday they've been on!

They went to Hawaii, Italy, Switzerland, France and Cornwall!

Jealous doesn't begin cover it.

Anyway, Celestine is finally home from her long holiday. She arrived back home yesterday with a battered suitcase and sand in her hair. She was surprised to see that we had moved house in the time that she'd been away. She went straight out to explore the river nearby and practice using her new fishing rod that Carol made for her.

It was actually made for Celestine a few months ago but the weather has been cold and then Celestine has been on holiday so it didn't get its proper first outing until yesterday. Isn't it amazing though! I am in awe of how Carol has made it out of what looks like a tiny, thin piece of bamboo and some cork and string and wire.

Tuesday, 10 March 2015

The thing I most looked forward to about moving into our own house was being able to put all my favourite pictures on the walls! So when we moved in it was one of the first things I did.

I decided to do a gallery style wall because I just have so many pictures I want to put up. One or two frames on the wall just wasn't going to cut it.

So... My Celestine wall was born!

I absolutely love this wall of pictures. It makes me so happy to look at. All these pictures are memories of places we've been and things we've done (but through a miniature person's eyes!)- holidays to Cornwall, honeymoon, Dubai, our visit to Brugge, autumn walks etc... so I find it just so nice to look at.

The frames I bought from Wilkinsons. Altogether I think they came to about 65 pounds-ish and I printed out all the photos myself on glossy paper.

My second gallery wall is for illustrations and is above the sofa. For these frames I wanted them all to be gold (to match the rococo mirror theme) and all to look different. I gemmed some of them up with crystals. A lot of these frames I actually bought for one pound at the pound shop and then just painted them gold. Some of the pictures I scanned from my favourite childrens books but most of them are postcards collected up over the last few years.

I have many of my favourite illustrations up there! Also I have a box frame with a little 3d fairy in it made by Betty Bib. It's a domestic fairy with little grey feather wings to help with all the cleaning! I have had it for quite a while and have been so eager to get it up on the wall on display. I love it!

Here's a zoomed out picture of our living room so you can get an idea of what the gallery wall looks like over the sofa.

And there are my beloved lanterns. I can't express how much I love to see the lanterns all lit up (almost) every night!

Oh and now some more lanterns but in the garden this time. They come on automatically when it gets dark and we can see them through the living room window. I love coloured lights.

Back to the inside. Either side of the mirror in the living room, we have two gold twirly frames. Henry put a Zelda picture in one of them and in the other I put (yes another) picture of Celestine because I just thought that this picture of Celestine eating her birthday cake would go so well in a gold twirly frame.

We are still so so so happy to finally be in our own house. We felt at home very very quickly here and we have had some really nice weekends lately. Last weekend Henry's mum came to visit which was really nice. We went to Turkish restaurant and just chatted loads and watched Gone Girl and cooked Sunday lunch for my grandparents. Henry made poached pears in brandy snap baskets.It was very relaxed.

This weekend we had a birthday/housewarming party and had friends round because it was both mine and Henry's birthday this week. We tried out a local restaurant in our village (calamari for me- yum!) and then came back to the house for drinks and dessert. I just love to see those friends and it was a really good mix of people who came. I was sorry when they all went home at the end. I had a lot of fun. My mum made us birthday cakes, mine a creamy chocolaty pudding thing and Henry's a chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate chips. We do like chocolate!

Here's a funny 'family portrait' picture we self-timered of everyone at the party. My friend Sian is holding the squid Henry got for his birthday and Henry has the octopus on his head. Henry got a cuddly toy squid and a cuddly toy octopus for his birthday and he is very enamoured with them. They follow us downstairs in the morning and back up to bed at night.

So yes, I am now twenty seven as I am writing this on the 8th March which is my birthday! -a day after our party. Twenty seven definitely feels like a jump because now I am suddenly in my LATE twenties rather than just my twenties- ahh!

Here I am a week or so ago on a walk on the hills near our house. I try and go up those hills most days. It's necessary I think when you work on your own from home all day. I would be too cooped up otherwise. I absolutely love love love living near them, I am so glad we moved here! You can see the wild horses behind me.

Sunday, 8 March 2015

This week there was a programme on TV about dolls houses and Lauren Child. Being interested in miniatures and illustration, a programme combining both these things was right up my street. So I watched it, of course (it's on iplayer for another twenty something days if you're interested in watching it too.) It was very inspiring actually.

What I really loved about it was getting to see Lauren Childs own dolls house that she has been working on for 30 years. It was beeeautiful. And it also really looked like Lauren Childs dolls house- if you know what her illustration work is like then you will know what I mean! The colours and the patterns and the shape and design of the furniture... and I love the lighting!

I also love how she has put one of her own illustrations up on the wall in miniature:

And look, there's some tiny alcohol bottles in that red cupboard...

Not sure which room this was in but I like this little cupboard space too:

The programme is called 'Secret Knowledge: The Private Life of a Doll's house. I also liked how it explored the reasons why some people love dolls houses so much- they allow you to control and escape into a tiny little world of your own. Also dolls houses tell stories.

Talking of miniatures, I also just wanted to highlight an etsy shop I discovered last year called Nalladris. The reason I love this shop so much is because it sell the most exquisite, glittering miniature jewellery. I have mentioned this shop before last year when I bought Celestine a tiny mauve necklace but I thought it was worth mentioning again.